Oh, and briefly

[solarbird]

There's a thing going around today about FOX being the US's most trusted media source. The survey in question strongly oversamples baby boomers - I only have the summary pages, of course, but judging from the oversampling it looks, at a guess, like they don't call cell phones. This doesn't necessarily change the result, but it does throw it into rather sharp question.

Comments

[cow.livejournal.com]

I said this to you in chat, but for the benefit of other readers -- it questions the headline result, but the underlying analysis seems sound: people are less interested now in 'unbiased' and 'neutral', and more seem to want 'what tells me what I want to hear'. Which, (1) duh, and (2) is shown in both the oversampled right and the left when asked who they 'trust'.

(In contrast, my favourite Canadian columnist is a small-c conservative.)

[solarbird]

Oh, absolutely. I've been saying for some time that American politics are now almost completely sectarian. That hasn't changed in the least, and this fits that perfectly.

[llachglin.livejournal.com]

I still don't think there's an equivalency here. The typical "liberal" listens to NPR and watches network news, which is basically middle-of-the-road stuff. Then you have activists of the Daily Kos/Olbermann/Maddow type (including myself, though I'm on the margins of that demographic), but the numbers who exclusively get those news from those sources is small and they tend to be more skeptical and evenhanded. For example, Maddow has conservatives on all the time and lets them have their say, even if she always gets the last word. I read Andrew Sullivan every day and follow many of his links to conservative and moderate bloggers (as do many liberals). Most liberals I know are willing to accept the current bipartisan (by content if not votes) health bill even though they all support single payer in principle. The Fox/Limbaugh/Beck right wing just doesn't get out of that box at all. And most people on the left have serious problems with Obama and don't buy into the cult of personality in anything like the way right-wingers sucked up to Bush. It's just not comparable.

[dustin-00.livejournal.com]

The CDC has been troubled by the cell phone trend for a couple years:
http://www.geek.com/articles/mobile/cdc-study-shows-that-wireless-only-homes-are-growing-2009057/

I don't know what their solution is, but I certainly don't want them calling my cell phone -- that's why I canceled my land line to begin with!!!

[denelian.livejournal.com]

that lack of calling cell phones -


among the people i know [age range 18 - ~60] i can think of THREE people with land-lines. my dad, because he's required to by work [and they pay for it], a friend divorcing an abusive husband who *has* to have a way for him/his lawyer to contact her, but doesn't want him to be able to call her outside that [and seriously - 4 people have the landline number. 3 of them are lawyers. everyone else, including prospective jobs, gets the cell-phone, as the landline is going as soon as the divorce is final], and my friend's mom because she's still AF reserve and works on an AF base and they also require a landline.

it's becoming less and less likely that people are going to have landlines...

i do have to say: i have gotten some survey-type calls - but if i even hint that i'm on a cell, they *STOP* and tell me "thanks but this is no longer valid". i get the impression that it's the sheer mobility - with a landline, you only keep a number if you live in THAT area-code. but i can live in CA and use a cell with a number from Ohio, and that's fine.
i don't know what will happen in the future - if the problem is one of proof of location, are they only going to call cells with GPS on? or base the "location" off the billing address? [my billing address and my votinmg address are different, though...]

it's interesting...

FOX is not a "journalist" source. at least, not according to my university :D [they might be biased. but from the second FOX was taken off the white house "list" we haven't been allowed to use FOX as a cite. which is hilarious]

[king-chiron.livejournal.com]

Reputable researchers attempt to adjust for cell-phone use, just like they generally weight all research data (your responses will never match the country's demographics in terms of age, income, education, race, political affiliation, etc). The survey results mention weighting but don't mention the specifics of what they did.